New Project

My next project is Alice's View, a play on the name of one of my co-workers. My idea was to begin with a picture window framing her favorite vacation spot. I had spies working to find out where that might be, and although she said she and her family never go anywhere, she reluctantly agreed that Hawaii would be "okay." Are you kidding? (smile)

With that clue in mind, I found the beautiful panel below, approximately 44" x 24". Although you wouldn't actually see the ocean life in the water through a picture window, it ties in to a recent trip that Alice and her family took to Monterey Bay Aquarium.

The panel will form the center of the quilt, surrounded by Island Path and Bird of Paradise quilt blocks. The quilt block color scheme will be rather analogous, creating a neutral sort of background, so as not to take away from the theme panel. I shopped my stash and found blues, turquoise, purple and greens that will work. I found one large piece of violet-blue solid in my stash which I'm hoping will be enough to fill the dark blues in all of the blocks. While I was out picking up some extra fat quarters for the project, I couldn't find more of the exact fabric, but I did find a decent substitute--mottled, not solid. I'll know later if I need it.

Layout for Alice's View (theme panel goes in the center)

Actual quilt will be scrappier.

Once again I'll be applying my Organized Chaos Grid and System to create controlled scrappiness. My plan is to use the same dark blue-violet in each block, adding two varying fabrics per block. Below is my map for the project.

Organized Chaos Map for Alice's View

Here's a funny little story. I found the theme panel on the internet at eQuilter.com. I needed it in a hurry and didn't want to take the time to look around locally to "maybe" find something I liked better. The fabric arrived in a couple of days, which was wonderful. Today I saw a bolt of the same fabric at my local fabric store! I laughed.